Licensing Symantec Products on VMWARE systems

[AEGarcia57]

When licensing Symantec Products on a VMware machine running multiple guests, do you license the product per physical box or per number of guests defined?

[Thomas_K]

License count applies to the total number of guests (clients).

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO16354&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1297287070316

[Andy_Welburn]

if you look at the NetBackup 7.0 eula:

"If You are also running virtual environments, i.e. one or more virtual instances on a physical machine, You must acquire a license of the Licensed Software for each operating system used in such virtual environment and supported by the Licensed Software, if different than the operating system used on the physical machine. For example, if Your physical Server or Client runs the Windows operating system and also runs a virtual environment running the Linux operating system, You must acquire two licenses of the Licensed Software to support such Server or Client."

and further

"17.15 Virtual Machines and IBM zSeries. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Agreement, if you have installed the Licensed Software on an IBM zSeries computer, you must license a NetBackup Client for each virtual machine running on such computer. For the purposes of this Agreement, a virtual machine is considered the same as an actual machine in connection with such computer."

http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/eulas/GBL%20ENT%20EULA%20NBU%207%200_Final.pdf

[pkh]

It gets even muddier with BE.  The AVVI agent licence is per physical host.  With an AVVI licence, you are entitled to install the BE remote agent into an unlimited number of VM's on that physical host.  This means that you can then backup these VM's as if they are physical machines without incurring extra licencing cost.  However, if you need to backup applications like Exchange, SQL databases, etc, then you have to get one licence per VM or physical machine.